5 Thoughts on Managing Energy at the Piano
If you want a non-musical picture of what it feels like to play concert-level piano literature, watch a major league baseball pitcher. In high-level performance sports—as in music—decades of preparation and thousands of repetitions go into each move. But success on the pitcher’s mound, or the piano keyboard, demands one more critical element: managing energy. Knowing how to use adrenaline rather than being overwhelmed by it is frequently the difference between performing at the highest level or failing.
Of all the tasks facing the pianist, managing energy has been one of my biggest challenges. It’s something I’ve worked on since learning about performance anxiety as a teenager, and it’s a concept I found extremely difficult to convey when teaching students. I think this is because while we can read others’ advice (and offer others our own advice), managing the energy of a piece is a deeply individual task.
I was thinking about this challenge a few weeks ago when I added Chopin’s second Ballade to my usual practice diet of modern music. I’d worked out the technical demands of the piece, but was (and, at times, still am) struggling to manage the energy shifts of the piece. This Ballade is all about balancing mood shifts and energy. It goes from tranquil to chaotic with almost no warning. The gestures move from small and intimate to enormous, and the challenge lies in knowing where to hang on to the notes and where to release them.
The never-ending task of managing energy at the piano feels, at times, like something of a Gordian knot. It involves ever-changing situations: each piece demands different things from the pianist, and each pianist is (even in small ways) a different player from one day to the next. I can’t say I’ve found every solution to the challenge, but here are things that work for me:
Figure out the puzzle of the piece
Every piece, at its core, is a puzzle—one that’s solved through careful analysis of the score, consistent practicing, common sense, and (at times) informed, creative guess work. It helps to ask yourself questions: why did the composer move from this idea to that one? What technical demands are needed in each section? How does the emotional intensity affect my ability to execute the music? Where do I need to play with more emotional detachment in order to play better?
Know yourself
My mentor, Jill Timmons, once memorably taught me that performance stress prompts old-brain responses. Under pressure, everyone either fights or flees. Fighters dig into the notes and refuse to let go. Flee-ers don’t get all the way into the notes. Either extreme leads to unfortunate results. Because I know I’m a fighter, I know that nearly every challenge I’m having when performing a tricky technical section can be solved if I just focus on releasing the notes.
Map out gestures
Every action at the piano is a gesture. In some sections, we need to make small gestures. Other sections require us to make big ones. If we don’t have a firm understanding of what’s needed where, we over or under-play the notes, or we’re caught unprepared when music demands a different movement. I always start with the big picture: does this passage need small movements or large ones? Once I understand this, I analyze the gestures needed to execute each phrase: do I need to hang on? Do I need to let go? Do I need to manage a change in direction? A phrase-by-phrase roadmap gives me the ability to approach technical sections with confidence.
Examine fear
When approaching a challenging section, it’s useful to listen to your internal dialogue. Check in with your body. Are you tensing up somewhere? Is there a voice in your head telling you that you can’t play this part (or this piece)? If you’ve grounded yourself in careful, technical command of the piece and you’re still being sabotaged by your thoughts, it can be useful to step away from the piano and write out all the fears you’re bringing to the piece. Provided the music is within your playing level, I predict that part of what you’ll discover will be outdated and outgrown perceptions of yourself and your ability to play this music. Sometimes seeing these fears in print is enough to banish them. If not, books such as Eloise Ristad’s A Soprano on Her Head provide excellent advice on how to overcome them.
Check your focus
As with over and under playing, it’s easy to over or under-think while performing. Overthinking makes us hyper-critical of each note and gesture, and this is unmusical at best, paralyzing at worst. Under-thinking allows our mind to wander, which can lead to us getting lost in the score. I’ve found it useful to have a very clear picture of what I wish to communicate through the notes when I play—in this way, I keep my focus without overthinking everything.
Knowing that each piece is a puzzle—one that through study and consistent practice can be solved—allows me to stop seeing performance challenges as an indication of my worth as a pianist. Knowing myself and my own personal responses to pressure, allows me to work within my abilities and limitations. These two things, along with solid musical preparation, allow me live the energy of the music rather than be swept away by it. And that’s where musicality and technical command create temporal moments of beauty.